Fishermen can't stop powerful political force

Kayaker Paul Lebowitz, a member of the South Coast Regional Stakeholders Group, devoted more than a year of his time to coming up with sensible closures. Of all the user groups, kayak and lobster fishermen took the biggest hits.

“I feel like I went through a year-long, protracted divorce,” Lebowitz said.

It was all that, with the preservationists continuing to get custody of huge chunks of ocean for their so-called “sanctuaries” and anglers losing visitation rights to those traditional fishing grounds where some play and others make money for their families.

As long as the environmental money flows, we haven't seen the end of these ocean and land closures.

Meanwhile, our nearly bankrupt state government, namely the Department of Fish and Game, can't afford to monitor, enforce or even do the necessary public outreach for these giant proposed closures.

But MLPA backers carry on, holy war-like in their march to keep anglers off the water and ruin this state's fishing economy.